all that matters
by literallyjgs
Summary: au: matt & gabby are on a trip in seattle, washington. when they get into a serious car accident, who will save them? even though they've been through this trauma themselves...the patients are all that matters. (even more terrible at summaries. six-part-arc)
1. part one

**all that matters.**

 _part one_

 **A/N: This is a different style to how I'm used to writing so please leave any feedback you have. I know there's probably a lot of mistakes and bits that don't make any sense, and it seems** _ **waayyy**_ **too long, but please stick with it, and hopefully enjoy it! :)**

 **EDIT: I also decided to change this from one big long one-shot to a 6-chapter arc thing, so it's more bearable to read :)**

Their black SUV had been provided by her brother as a wedding gift a year ago. Now, they travelled everywhere in it. After they'd found out that she was pregnant with their daughter, they'd wanted to go on one last trip before she was born. She'd always liked Seattle and wanted to visit all the places, and so he blissfully agreed. She was in awe of the beauty of Seattle and wasn't at all worried about the 30 hour drive they'd have to embark on to Seattle and back to their home town of Chicago. They'd had an amazing time, and although she was somewhat restricted from doing some things due to the late stage in her pregnancy, she'd enjoyed it more than anything. She'd been with him, and that's all that mattered. They'd drove back from the Space Needle and to their hotel, where they loaded up that all so familiar SUV with all their belongings and set back out on that 30-hour drive back to Chicago.

She'd always loved the idea of being a mother, and knew from the moment that he met him, when they got together, when he proposed, when they got married, to now, he'd be an amazing father too. She loved her brother for his jocular moods, but when he'd found out she was pregnant, her opinion of him had changed drastically, however not too much to make her hate him, not ever. Her brother had already had two kids and had been constantly lecturing her on how to parent her daughter, which she abhorred and couldn't stand. She'd zone out and think about the first time her and her husband had met, where they worked, at Firehouse 51 in Chicago, when she transferred there as a paramedic. He was the Lieutenant of the Truck Company and she was the Paramedic in Charge. She'd think of all the challenges they'd encountered through the stages of their relationship, but ultimately was beatific at where they'd ended up now, married.

She stared out of the window as they drove down the freeway, watching them pass by trees and grass like it was nothing. She admired the sun and generally the overall warmth of the place; Chicago had always been cold, sure, it was her home, but it was freezing there, almost all the time. She placed a hand on her stomach as she leant her head against the window, smiling at her husband, who was concentrating on driving but occasionally looking over at her to make sure she was okay. She'd loved always how his top priority was always her and her wellbeing, no matter the situation. She loved him so much, as he did her. He energetically sung along to the music on the radio as she sniggered at his awful singing.

The journey was quiet, other than the singing, and he was becoming ever so slightly irritable about how much they had to stop for her to go to the toilet; she was pregnant, after all. He pulled out of a gas station as she fell asleep, only to be awoken by the wave of horns as a van swerved into them at such a speed that they saw nothing before it happened. They could do _nothing._ Nothing; then, resounding silence.

The crash seemed to take forever as the adrenaline coursed through her body at the same pace a rocket blasts off into space. She was convinced; she could see there was no hope; she could see she was going to die. She was going to die, her husband was going to die, her unborn daughter was going to die. Their ashes would be scattered and their gravestones placed and after a while they would all be forgotten. Her entire life flashed through her eyes as she travelled through the never-ending light. No one could help them now; it was too late. The van in the lane had swerved into them and knocked them off their course down into the embankment. She was trapped in a steel prison; they all were. She was convinced they were all going to die; she was a paramedic; she was sure they couldn't live through this. As the front of the car collided with the metal railing, she suddenly hated inertia.

At the last second, he jumped. His body hit the hood of the car and he screamed. Or rather, screamed as loud as he could which was not that loud at all. His bones and muscles and joints and organs felt like they were being crushed and being forced into a tiny box. His lungs contracted with such force that he was afraid that they would fold into themselves and he would die. He was convinced he wouldn't survive; he was a firefighter; he'd witnessed more car crashes than he could count. He knew this wasn't good; he knew his odds weren't good so he just lay there, waiting for death to come and pick him up and carry him away from this damned place. His torso and head was smashed up against the windshield whilst his arms and legs were flailing, searching desperately for somewhere to hold and stop the forward movement his body was enduring. If he had died, he'd always wanted to do it in his hometown surrounded by his family and friends, not in a foreign place, watching his wife, the love of his life, and their unborn daughter, crumble into ashes with him. The world must have kept flickering its almighty light switch because everything went from blinding light to bitter darkness within a matter of seconds. He knew this was a bad idea; he'd wanted to take his wife on one last trip before the arrival of their daughter; she'd always wanted to visit Seattle and so he agreed. Now, he wished he'd been more adamant with his decision to stay home and let her rest. The only sounds filling his ears were piercing screams and blank faces from pedestrians, rushing over to help the two of them. He could almost hear the dialling tone as a woman rushed out of her house to call 911, drowned out by the cracking of the glass and the shattering of his own bones. He was flying through the windshield from the impact that had happened seconds before, his air bag failing to deploy, his seat belt ripping from the impact, resting his bloody, bruised head on the black bonnet of his car. He'd forgotten about his head, about his previous injury. Now he was convinced that he was going to die. He just wished that she wasn't.

The car had crashed with such a force that she'd become disoriented before she even sustained the concussion that had her constantly drifting through a dream-like state, in and out of consciousness. She was fleetingly aware of the bloody taste in her mouth but she couldn't and didn't have the strength to figure it out. Why was she in pain? So much pain? She looked down at her belly and noticed a pool of water forming on the car seat. She was painfully aware of what that meant, and she knew that she needed to get out of here, now. She felt for her forehead, covered in blood. Just as she thought about debating forcing herself out of the car, she saw and heard the all too familiar blue sirens of the ambulance, flashing in the distance, as if they were the cause of her dipping in and out of consciousness. Her head was banging, like all of humanity had gathered in there, roaring in isolation, punching against her skull. She was drowning in a wave of melancholy determined to kill her and her daughter. She couldn't think about her, though. What about him? How was her husband? She frantically looked around for him but couldn't see him next to her. That's when she looked up, seeing his body lying motionless on the bonnet of the car. No. He couldn't die and leave her to live. And with his previous brain injury? He couldn't leave her. Not yet. He couldn't leave her and _their daughter._


	2. part two

all that matters

 _part two_

Meanwhile, at the nearest hospital, Grey Sloan Memorial, they'd just received the call from the paramedics that responded to the accident. All they'd got from the situation was that there was a RTA and two patients were being brought in with major trauma; a male and a female; the latter being 38 weeks pregnant.

"There's a trauma coming in on the roof." Dr. Owen Hunt, Head of Trauma Surgery, politely yelled, or rather screamed, at everyone gathering around. He was Ex-Army so shouting was normal for him, but the residents still hadn't got used to anyone yelling that loud.

"Grey, Robbins, Shepherd, I need you!" He yelled some more, staring at the three doctors he'd just called out. The Head of General Surgery, Dr. Meredith Grey, the Head of Foetal and Paediatric Surgery, Dr. Arizona Robbins, and the Head of Neurosurgery, Dr. Amelia Shepherd.

"It's got to be bad if he needs all three of them", the residents whispered as they began gossiping like teenage girls, all pushing past each other trying to peek at the trauma victims, gawking at the injuries they'd sustained, as they were being wheeled into Trauma 1 and Trauma 2 respectively.

But he wasn't done either.

"Pierce, Torres, Webber, Kepner! I need you too!" He shouted out of Trauma One to a group of doctors gathering outside Trauma 2. Dr. Maggie Pierce, Head of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Dr. Callie Torres, Head of Orthopaedic Surgery, Dr. Richard Webber, another General Surgeon and Dr. April Kepner, a fellow Trauma Surgeon of Dr. Hunt's. Him picking all the trauma heads of departments _at_ were needed set off alarm bells in each individual residents' head that this was a serious case that they _really_ wouldn't want to miss on.

"Pierce, Webber, Torres, Shepherd and I will take him. Robbins, Grey, Kepner, take the woman! Quick!" He clamoured so almost the whole hospital could hear. It seemed that his favourite thing to do was shout.

They were treating him in Trauma 1. He'd been brought in with a query fractured pelvis, broken femur, tibia and fibula, a tension pneumothorax in his right lung which the paramedics had decompressed on their way to the hospital, and traumatic head and abdominal injuries. Just from looking at him, the doctors could tell that he must have gone through the windshield or something like that because these were extremely serious injuries and he would have a long recovery ahead of him.

"Torres, are you alright?' Owen looked at Callie, who was trying not to cry, shaking with fear. She froze, unable to formulate a single thought. She shuddered, standing over him, knowing that _she_ was next door.

"Torres?" The ghastly memories from her own past circulated around her mind, constantly, not stopping, as if they were cars on a never-ending racetrack, emitting fear and more thoughts and memories from that day. She envisaged herself there, in the trauma room, in the operating room, in recovery, and every single second of that was complete and utter pain and worry. She longed for her daughter, yearned to hold her in her arms. She felt so sorry for that woman; she was probably going to end up the same as she did. It's not the surgeries, but the waiting, the not knowing if she or the other person was going to survive, that's what kills you. Callie felt so sorry for her. That woman…she didn't know if she was going to make it. She didn't know if he was going to make it. She didn't know if her daughter was going to make it, just as she had done with her daughter Sofia. And her daughter, Sofia, she'd already lost her father. She couldn't let this woman's child looe her father too. She wanted to go to that woman and tell her to wait and tell her everything was okay but as a medical professional in this situation, she just couldn't do that. She had to swipe all her feelings to the side and work her absolute hardest as a doctor to save this man's life. And that's what she was going to do; she had her mind set on it.

"Yes, sorry. I'm fine." She replied, wiping the small number of tears that had formed under her eyes from her face. It wasn't often that she cried; the toll tears took on her was insufferable; she hated crying, hated being perceived as weak. She was a doctor; she couldn't be weak. She adjusted her hair and put on gloves and began examining his injuries.

"That's a broken right tib-fib and left femur", she continued, inspecting his pelvic injuries, "the pelvis is broken but not bad enough for a complete reconstruction", she walked forward now, towards his arms, "I'd say a broken left radius too, and that's all that I could see visually. He'll need some X-Rays but I think that can wait if there's more pressing issues."

They ordered a plethora of tests as the other doctors examined his other internal injuries.

"He needs a CT Chest and Abdomen, quick!" Richard and Maggie said, almost in sync. Like father, like daughter, they say.

"He needs a Head CT, now!" Amelia stood at his head, using her torch to carefully inspect and examine what she could of his obvious head injury, trying not to aggravate it further than it already was. She was perhaps the most affected by this; her brother had died of a neurological injury sustained in a car crash; the doctors had not taken him for a Head CT and he died. This man in the trauma room right now imitated Derek's injuries and it made her uneasy. What's worse, was that he was a neurosurgeon too, and since the death of their father, one of her biggest inspirations to stay clean, one of her biggest inspirations to become a neurosurgeon like she was now. Ever since then, she'd vowed to herself never to let a patient die in that manner, never let a brother, father, husband, be taken away from their family like that ever again.

"Is he stable enough for that many scans though?" Maggie interrupted, gaining a stare of disgust from Amelia. Maggie knew of her feelings on the matter, and she felt like that was just plain apathetic rudeness. Maggie glanced at Amelia, and without looking at her expression for long, backed down and lifted the railing at the side of the bed and began wheeling him to CT.

The images popped up on the screens in the CT room and blank faces spread all around as the doctors examined the injuries he had sustained. The residents again were gawking, congregating outside the room where the doctors were viewing the scans, pushing against each other to try and get the best view. The residents hated being excluded but understood why; this was _such_ a big case.

A depressed skull fracture, coupled with both an epidural and subdural bleed, coupled with his previous traumatic brain injury; he didn't have a good shot at coming out of surgery alive. But she had to try. She had to try and save him. She couldn't let him die like her brother did.

A grade three liver laceration was all they could see at first. But upon closer inspection, they discovered Abdominal Compartment Syndrome, or ACS for short. They could have waited if it were just for the liver laceration but due to the latter injury they had to operate now or his whole body would start failing, crumbling right in front of their eyes, while they sat and did nothing.

He also had a flash pulmonary oedema and traumatic ventricular septal defect, or TVSD. They marvelled over how he was still alive in such a critical condition. They didn't have time to make up a surgical plan; they had to do it right then and there. They had to intubate him and take him up to surgery immediately.

"I don't know about this, Dr Hunt." Richard sighed, defeated.

"I know. But we should try. You know that." Owen retorted. He knew too that they had to save him. For _her._

"We never objected to trying, Owen." Amelia interjected. "So let's just go already". She huffed and walked into the CT room where they were just getting him out of the scanner, having already intubated him. She took two steps into the room when the heart monitor started beeping like crazy, and the three doctors behind him came rushing in.

"He's in SVT at 140!" Amelia checked the monitor and with the help of the others got him back onto the bed and began wheeling him to the OR.

"We need to get him into surgery now!" All three doctors behind her simultaneously screamed. They understood that all their problems needed addressing immediately and so they all decided to operate at the same time, despite the risks that come with that. It was his only chance and it was what they had to do.

"I realised!" She sarcastically yelled back, scrubbing in as the anaesthesiologist inside OR 1 sedated him. She prayed for him to be alright, to not turn out like her brother did, like Derek did. They all did. They weren't losing him. Not yet.


	3. part three

all that matters

 _part three_

"Hi sweetie, what's your name? I'm Dr Kepner, and this is Dr Grey and Dr Robbins and we're going to help you is that okay?" April asked with her usual, cheery smile.

"Gabby…my name's Gabby…please find my husband. How is he?" She stared into her eyes, and almost into her soul, with such a sad expression that it was so hard for Dr Kepner to lie to her. She was breathing oddly fast and so they hooked her up to a foetal monitor

"How many weeks are you?" April continued trying to make conversation, trying to take her mind off her husband so that she wouldn't have to answer her pleads. They'd all been informed of his condition and she didn't want to stress her out more than she already was.

"38 weeks…I just want my husband. Please tell me how he is." She was determined, and it pained her not to be straight with her.

"I'm not so sure you would - "

"I'm a paramedic; I can handle it." She breathed through her pain, which her doctors were somewhat oblivious to. "He's a firefighter. I've plagued myself with thoughts of him getting injured on the job rather than in some car crash; nonetheless, I can take it. Please, tell me. I can handle it."

"Gabby, um…" She obviously loved her husband dearly. April only wished her husband and herself could share that same level of love for each other. She was beginning to think marrying Jackson was a massive mistake; they always argued, repulsed feelings and difficult circumstances began increasingly enveloping their marriage – was it even worth it anymore?

"Tell me where my husband is."

April shared a glance with Meredith, who simply shrugged her shoulders and gave her a look of confusion in return. Of all people, April thought Meredith would have _some_ expertise in this area…. because of Derek.

Without getting the answer she wanted, Gabby continued pressing April for one.

"Where's my husband? Is he okay? You must find him, please. I am not having this baby without him. Don't worry about me. Find my husband."

She was hyperventilating, slightly tachycardic at 103. Her injuries were nowhere near as serious as his – mostly just superficial other than the piece of glass that was sticking out of her shoulder, which they'd managed to remove in the trauma room, and the liver laceration which didn't seem at all serious – in fact it would probably just clean up on its own. She calmed slightly, only to begin crying, but it was more than _crying,_ it was the kind of desolate sobbing that comes from a person drained, drained of all hope. Her tears mingled with the sullen beeping of the heart monitor; the not knowing turned her to mourning; if he was alive, they would have told her, right? It didn't seem like mourning though; mourning was supposed to be something dignified and stoic, but she cried with choking sobs at the thought of her husband's passing and she was not ashamed of it one bit. The sadness had drowned out her sadness and once the doctors had managed to stop her sadness, the pain did not return. She just lay there on the bed in Trauma 2, longing to know what was happening to her husband just next door.

The doctors gathered in the corner of the room, whispering so she couldn't hear.

"The baby's heartbeat is way too fast. If we can't get it down, I think we'll have to deliver. We need to calm her down." April whispered, Meredith nodding along with her proposition. Although neither of them had much experience in foetal or paediatric medicine, it was obvious that they needed to interfere, or things could go bad. Dr Robbins however, just stood there, frozen.

"Arizona, you alright?" April piped up, sensing her unease. Over the past year, they'd become good friends, to the point where they could sense each other's emotions.

"She just reminds me of Callie. That's all. I'll be fine". She smiled uncomfortably and turned around back to Gabby, glancing at her appearance, trying desperately to convince herself that this patient was _not_ Callie and they would not let her turn out like Callie, before turning back to Meredith and April and putting forward her input.

"So…?" Dr Grey asked, "What should we do?" She was oddly unaffected by the whole ambience of this situation. Her husband, Dr Shepherd's brother, had died in such similar circumstances to this, and she didn't seem at all bothered by it, unlike Dr Shepherd.

"You're just _okay_ with all this?" Arizona asked, perplexed.

"Why wouldn't I be?" She returned the question, bewildered as to why Arizona would even ask something like that. She looked fine, didn't she?

Arizona tried to find the right words to be sensitive towards her, but it was much easier for her to come out with it bluntly, to avoid any misconceptions. They did have to focus on their patient, but they all needed to be in the right mind-set to do so. So, she had to make sure Meredith was.

"Doesn't he remind you of…" She could barely even say his name. It had been a year but his death had hit the whole hospital hard. Everyone began lashing out on each other, the hospital's infrastructure began crumbling in front of their own eyes. Derek…he was like the glue, and him and Meredith, they were the couple everyone looked to for advice on anything – it seemed like they could get through anything, inseparable, together.

"Derek? Of course I do." Meredith replied, almost smiling.

"But how…?" Both Arizona and April were surprised at her resilience towards the whole thing; Derek was her husband, surely, surely, she missed him? Surely _this_ reminded her of Derek, her husband, the father of her children, being snatched away all too soon?

"How am I okay?" She stopped for a moment, darting her eyes back at the patient, then to Arizona and April. "Well, I have to be, don't I. I'm a doctor. I'm bound to encounter more people like Derek, it's literally my job; except with them, I won't let them turn out like him, I will save them, we, as a hospital, will save them. Like we _will_ do with this woman and her husband. I promised myself, I promised Derek, I promised Zola, I promised Bailey, I promised Ellis, I promised my family, that I wouldn't let what happened to my husband, their dad, Amelia's brother, I wouldn't let that _happen_ to anyone else's family. I'll never stop missing him; but I've had my time to grieve. It's time for us to be doctors, be the medical professionals we are and that we were trained to be, and save this woman. That's our only priority right now, and we're wasting valuable time. Let's get to work."

They checked the foetal monitor again as the woman began experiencing more pain. They knew exactly what that meant. They all broke apart and Arizona walked over, putting another pair of gloves on.

"Honey, you're having contractions-" Arizona began speaking again as she rushed to her bedside yet she was again interrupted by their patient.

"No…no…no…no…no…. I'm not having my baby without my husband. He needs to be here, please…. we had it all planned out…" Arizona sighed as the wave of sympathy for this woman hit her unexpectedly, like a truck. She didn't like how the whole atmosphere of this reminded her of what had happened with Callie.

"Sometimes, plans don't work, and things don't turn out like we expect them to. I'm sorry, sweetie, but this baby's coming…now."


	4. part four

all that matters

 _part four_

Seven hours later, she was _still_ in labour; she felt like she had been forever. She was convinced that the gas and air was the only thing stopping her from collapsing from her pain. She was only 5cm dilated and she was finding it increasingly hard to hide both her physical and mental pain from her doctors, though, she did know, she was going to be here for quite a long time. She just hoped that her husband would be awake and able to come to her, in whatever manner that would be, by the time it came to deliver their daughter. Meredith and Arizona were still observing her although she was now up in Maternity; Meredith, to make sure her liver laceration didn't cause any problems, and Arizona, to monitor the baby.

He was _still_ in surgery. Amelia was carefully working her craniotomy and evacuating both his epidural and subdural bleed. She'd deal with his skull fracture after the surgery by giving him a tetanus toxoid with sulfisoxazole and fluids. She'd hope that it would heal on its own from then; he'd already suffered enough head trauma, and he didn't need any additional unnecessary surgeries doing more harm than good. She could tell that he had had a previous head injury, but luckily at this stage in his surgery and recovery, it hadn't caused any _more_ problems.

They'd managed to resolve his ACS with fluid resuscitation and a blood transfusion, but after surgery they'd have to put him on a course of dobutamine and he'd have to be monitored intensively through the night. Richard had also stitched up his liver lacerations without any complication. They didn't like this feeling; the feeling that such a dangerous surgery was going all too well. Something was bound to go wrong and the wait to know what it is was killing them. Richard had finished and sutured and closed his abdomen and began scrubbing out, giving room for Maggie to surgically intervene with his pulmonary oedema and TVSD, seeing as the antibiotics they'd put him on whilst Richard and Amelia were operating seemed to no longer have effect. She knew she'd have to fix his defects eventually…but she was unsure of whether he could take this much trauma. They were all confident that he would be fine though…so, against her own wishes, she went with the popular opinion.

Maggie had always been regarded as an amazing young cardiothoracic surgeon and with such a difficult trauma case they'd all expected her to live up to her full potential; she was sure as hell _not_ going to let this man die and she was going to find the best way to _save_ him. She pushed nitroglycerin and furosemide first, in the hope that his pulmonary oedema would resolve naturally, with the help of the antibiotics, with no need for surgical intervention. Thankfully, she didn't need to put this poor man through more trauma than was needed; again, she wasn't sure how much he could take. She debated closing him up and using more antibiotics to stabilise him and take him into surgery at some point, but she knew his fragility, and knew that if she left him with an injury as serious as a TVSD, his chances of ever recovering would rapidly plummet.

"I need to fix his TVSD. He needs to be put on bypass". She said, knowing the normal course of treatment for this; she'd operated on a TVSD many times, just not in a trauma case of this magnitude. She began preparing herself to open him up as the OR nurses put him onto bypass; she went through _every_ conclusion in her head and saw this as the best course of treatment. She still felt so much sorrow for this poor man; his recovery would be so long, and his wife was pregnant too – she couldn't lose her husband and the father of her baby. That's just cruel.

The OR nurse began to hook him up to a machine as a second thought crossed Maggie's mind as she glanced at Amelia, who was still in the OR in case his brain suffered a re-bleed.

Luckily, Amelia _was_ there.

The OR nurse began to push heparin to put him under, and Maggie realised what she had done. She prayed she wasn't too late to stop it as she was too obsessed with her own individual thoughts to realise that heparin was needed for bypass; it would make his brain re-bleed and he may never wake up with that much neurological damage. She needed to do this percutaneously, why did she forget that? Why didn't she think of this earlier? She mentally scolded herself for this, for screwing up this man's chances of survival, oh why could she not think of this? Why did she forget? Could she have killed this man?

"No no no no no…." She said, watching Amelia, whose face was painted with confusion, and Maggie turned around, like a slow-motion movement in an action movie.

"Stop! Don't push the heparin!" She shouted, darting her eyes towards the nurse.

But it was too late.

The monitors suddenly flatlined and the OR nurse immediately disconnected him from the bypass machine. Amelia stepped forwards towards him, Maggie shaking with fear.

"Maggie…what is it…what's wrong…what's happening to him?"

"The heparin…his brain….it would…"

"Re-bleed. I need to open him back up. You need to fix his TVSD, he can't wait any longer." She thanked herself that she had decided not to scrub out so she could begin operating him without a delay. That would make up his chances, at least.

"It's too dangerous…." She saw the strain the simultaneous surgery had put on him earlier, and surely he couldn't take it again. Maggie was sobbing uncontrollably at the thought that maybe, just maybe, she would have contributed massively to the death of this man, because of her stupid, irresponsible mistake.

It only took Amelia four words to calm Maggie down though, and set her back into work mode; she had to save this man's life. He couldn't end up like Derek. They _both_ knew that.

"It's our only shot."


	5. part five

all that matters

 _part five_

She'd been told that he was out of surgery a few hours later, and that all the injuries he had sustained had been surgically repaired. They'd had to put him in a medically induced coma but according to them, his brain function was beginning to lighten up and that they should be able to wake him up soon. He was alive, and although his recovery was going to be a long road, filled with outpatient appointments and medications, him being alive was all that matters, and he was going to be with her, awake, so she could have this baby, with him.

 _About damn time_ , she thought.

She was now 7cm dilated and without her husband with her, she'd opted to have an epidural to deal with her pain. She still refused to confide in the doctors about how she felt; Meredith and Arizona had been sitting in her room in shifts for the past 10 hours, and she still couldn't trust them enough to tell her how she felt, how she lied when they asked if she was in pain, because, of course she was in pain, her husband nearly died and although they seemed empathetic towards her it didn't seem like they cared that he was okay.

She was wide awake, and to pass the time while her contractions where almost painless with the drugs, she sat up in bed, blankly staring at the doctor sititng at the foot of the bed, whether it be Meredith or Arizona. At the time, it was Meredith, and she was staring right back at her.

"Are you okay." Meredith asked. Quite frankly, she was getting tired of this game that the woman was playing, and her mind games weren't working on her.

"I want to see my husband." She protested. She even stood up from her bed and proved to Meredith that she could walk about freely. "See? Now, let me see my husband." She was becoming angrier but it didn't scathe Meredith in the slightest. She surpassed Meredith's expectations quite substantially; she didn't expect a pregnant woman to be this difficult.

"I can't let you leave. It's protocol". She continued, watching her intently.

"Like you haven't breached protocol before." The woman was right, but Meredith wasn't about to tell her that. She'd broken protocol more times than she could remember but she didn't care for the repercussions because she actually _liked_ those patients. This woman was becoming a bore.

"I haven't, actually." She smiled, sarcastically.

"You're obviously not going to let me out of here, so let's just talk." The woman smiled back, surprising Meredith by stopping protesting against the rules and her sudden change of heart.

"Oh, really?" She asked, unsure of whether to rejoice or be ready for the wave of havoc and chaos this woman would create to get her way. The pain drugs seemed to work on her better than they did on other people and she was just playing the waiting game.

"Really." The woman sat with her legs crossed on the bed. "So, you have any kids?" She bit the top of her lip.

"Three. Two daughters and a son." She replied, astonished at how this woman's behaviour had changed in the timespan of about 20 seconds.

"Husband?" She continued, intrigued.

"I don't want to talk about it." Yes, she did want to talk about it, with someone, just not with _her._

"Why's that." She moved forward, closer to the edge of the bed.

"I'm a widow. My husband died in a car accident, just like the one you and your husband were in. He came into a hospital which wasn't this one, and the doctors made a massive mistake and missed something and he died from it. Okay?" She seethed, lying back on the chair. She couldn't keep it inside anymore.

A few hours later, after more painful questions, Arizona appeared at the door so that Meredith could leave, but not before the woman could say, in a true voice,

"I'm sorry about your husband."

She didn't acknowledge it, and just walked off into the distance.

Arizona stepped in to re-examine the woman.

"How's the pain –" Arizona struggled to remember the woman's name, which was ironic, because with the long, tiring shift and the rollercoaster of emotions Arizona had suffered today, this woman had been the most annoying thing.

"Gabby." She seemed upset.

"Gabby." Arizona responded.

"You're 9cm dilated. Baby will be coming to meet us soon." Arizona said, her usual smile and cheeriness wiped from her face and replaced by a look of tiredness and longing to go and see her daughter and hug her and tell her everything's going to be alright.

"My husband?"

"Awake. Responsive. Asking the exact same questions as you, over and over."

"And what might they be?"

"Asking where each of you were."

"Can he come?"

"The doctors are still checking him over. He had a rough 12 hours in surgery, and he's going to need more." She was too tired to sugar coat this kind of stuff, so no matter how insensitive Arizona sounded, she didn't seem to care, "His left arm and both legs are still broken. If he was coming down here, it'd be in a bed."

"I don't care, I want to see him."

Not this again, Arizona thought to herself.

"You can go see him afterwards. Neither of you can move from where you are right now."

"Why? I feel fine."

"Because I just checked again and you're 10cm dilated. Whether you like it or not, Gabby, you are not moving, and you will just have me. You're having this baby."

"But –"

"No buts. This is how it's going to go down, and you are _not_ going to object to it, okay?" She yelled, but not to loud. Her tiredness was becoming irritability and Gabby certainly knew how to push all her buttons. This had already been too long a night and she didn't want it to drag on any longer than it had to. She had nothing left in her, no energy at all, to help this woman deliver her baby, but her integrity. So, she did what she had to do.


	6. part six

all that matters

 _part six_

"What's your name?"

"Matt Casey."

"How old are you?"

"29."

"Where are you?"

"A hospital."

"Good."

Amelia had just finished testing his neurological functions, and his initial recovery after surgery had been surprisingly quick. He sat in the ICU following a light with his eyes or a finger up and down his face for what seemed like forever before he was finally deemed okay neurologically.

"No neurological deficits. Heart rate and BP normal." She said blankly. After everything that had happened in that operating room, she honestly thought it was a miracle that he had no deficits.

"Can I go see my wife now?" He pleaded.

"I'm sorry, Mr Casey, but I don't think you've yet realised that you have a long road of recovery ahead. You can't just get up and go." Maggie explained, but he brought more resistance.

"I'm fine." He retorted.

"Mr Casey, I don't mean to be rude, but have you _not_ realised that both of your legs and your left arm are broken, so you _physically_ can't get up and go _anywhere._ " Callie got up, looking at his face turn from desperate to bewildered, as she lifted his bed sheets to reveal both his legs in a cast, and pointed at the bottom of his left arm, also covered in a cast.

"Oh. I guess the pain medications are too strong…ha." He laughed it off but as a man, in a profession such as a firefighter, he truly felt embarrassed that he'd been ashamed like this.

"We don't have you on any pain medications, Mr Casey." Callie smiled, joking with him.

"How's the pain on a scale of one to ten." Amelia joined, grinning, mocking him.

"A…two? I don't know. I'm a firefighter, pain just must have been numbed for me." He tried to explain, but both Callie and Amelia just stood there in front of him, sniggering.

"We're kidding. You're on high doses of morphine." She scoffed and turned way.

"Oh." He sighed again, confused as to how he was well...so confused. "My wife?"

"She's fine. In labour, but otherwise, fine."

"Let me see her."

"As we've already explained, we _can't_ move you. It's against protocol and we have to follow protocol. It's there for a reason. I'm sure, as a firefighter, you'd understand."

"I want to see her! I don't want to miss the birth of my daughter!'

Callie and Amelia shared a look. Having both been mothers at some point themselves, they knew what they had to do in their hearts – it just contradicted what the rules where and what their brain was telling them to do.

"I'll take him in a wheelchair." Callie said, grabbing a wheelchair from the corridor. The man slid onto the wheelchair with ease, and Callie began wheeling him out of the ICU and into the elevator and down to maternity, as he was hoping that he didn't miss the birth of his daughter.

He got to her room, Room 404, and heard her screams of pain from half way down the corridor. He longed to be there with her, help her through this.

He entered the room, immediately each made eye contact with the other. You could hear the sigh of relief emitted from both even over the screams.

"I'm so glad you're alive. You had me worried there."

"I'm never going to leave you." Callie wheeled him over to the bedside as he kissed her hand. "You can do this, Gabby. I wouldn't miss this for the world."

"I love you, Matt."

"I love you too, Gabby."

Arizona and Callie shared a look before Arizona went back and focused her attention on Gabby. She could see the baby's head, and told her, joyously,

"One last push, go on!" Matt's free hand grasped hers as she screamed out.

It had seemed that the happiness radiating from Matt and Gabby had spread throughout the room and had brought energy to both Callie and Arizona, who shared a look before Callie left the room to go back to the On-Call Room for a much-needed sleep.

"Hi." They cooed at the baby, wrapped in a cotton-candy pink blanket. Gabby was resting her head-on Matt's as they occasionally looked up from their daughter just to smile at each other. They were _truly_ in love, even after all of this.

Suddenly, almost every doctor they'd encountered at their time here entered their room, bearing a bouquet of vibrantly coloured flowers which they left on the side of one of the tables.

"What are you doing here? Is everything alright?" They each expressed concern for each other. Throughout their stay here, doctors entering their room didn't always mean good things were about to happen.

"Everything's fine…congratulations." Maggie grinned at their baby, fast asleep, wrapping her hand around Gabby's little finger.

"I wished Ellis behaved that well as a baby." Meredith joked.

"I think we just wanted to say some things to you all". Callie said.

"You were perhaps one of _the most annoying_ patients I've had…but you taught me a lot. About never giving up hope…learning to love in difficult circumstances…all of that soppy stuff." Arizona laughed, wiping a single tear from her eye.

"You helped me finally get over the death of my brother. You taught me that mistakes happen; sometimes we can fix them, and sometimes we can't. But the love that two people share, that never dies, and it can conquer so much than we can imagine at first." Amelia laughed, putting her arm around Owen.

"You guys saved my life. You saved my wife and you saved my beautiful daughter. I'm glad we taught you things, but we as a family are never going to be able to repay the debt we owe to all of you. Thank you all so much." Matt smiled at the group of doctors gathering around the door, and then back at his wife and daughter. The doctors left the room and were tempted to look through the window, but decided everyone needed rest now. It had been a long day.

"You're all I ever want in this world. I can't imagine my life without you and I'll always be here for you, no matter what." He said, kissing his daughter's tiny hand, watching his wife slowly fall asleep in the hospital bed. "I love you, _Adelaide Rae Casey_."


End file.
